someone please explain why i shouldnt...

[jee dog]

here is what I have:
a full size cabinet with all working parts.

here is what i want to do:
gut it, including the monitor, and replace it with a mame setup with a pc monitor (so no fuzziness when i use it as a pc & I want standard pc games to look good too) and working keyboard so it can serve as a mame machine and pc. I only want a controller board with just regular mame function buttons (esc...etc) and two joysticks, and 7 buttons each (for SF2/SNK style layout), and two extra buttons for player 1 & 2.

here is an idea from a friend of mine for controller setup:
Use two usb gravis gamepads and hack them for two players. Wire them for buttons & joysticks.

hack one keyboard for mame functions & wire them to seperate buttons, and use another keyboard in a slide out tray for typing. I heard that I can use a sort of pass through device to do this.

This simplistic approach allows me to avoid using special encoders like the i-pac. All I want to know is: Is this method going to work? I think I would only get ghosting on the mame function buttons but that wouldnt matter anyway. Has anyone here done something similar?

btw:I dont care about older games like pacman that use 4 way joysticks. both of mine must be 8 way.

PS:No track ball either

[me]

hey hey

you are on my track...i use the ALMOST same setup..

i dont care about old stuff either...and game pad hack dont have any kind of ghosting..but i wont recomand keyboard hack to play...maybe just for ESC,START,etc...

there is no problem...and get keyboard spliter...thats it...
or you go the EASY way....get game pads that has atleast 10 INPUTS per game pad...then you use 14 buttons and still have 6 more buttons for other stuff...that saves ya trouble of hacking keyboard and get spliter...get the cheapest pad...like 10$ each...

ebgames.com

good luck

[Jakobud]

If I were you I would not bother to hack anything.  In my opinion, it's simply not worth the time/trouble considering that you really don't save that much money.  If I were you, I would just buy a keyboard encoder.  It does not sound like you are going to use very many buttons at all, so a keyboard encoder would not cost very much for you and it would be WAY easier than spending all the time hacking something.  Do either the IPAC/JPAC thing, or take a look at

http://www.hagstromelectronics.com/

They also have excellent keyboard and mouse encoders and good prices.  That's where I got my encoders and I am VERY satisfied with them.

Like I said, don't hack.  It's not worth the time or trouble and doesn't really save you that much money.  Only hack if you really do enjoy hacking stuff like that and you want to do it for fun also.

Good luck

Jakobud

[u_rebelscum]

Since you want to play PC games too, I'd say you are on the right track.  Mame and most PC games are already set up to use gamepads or keyboards, but they may use different keys than each other.  With gamepads, you're pretty safe that all the games (mame & PC) will use the same buttons.  And if you have enough extra buttons from the gamepad, you can map them to what is normally the [tab], [esc], player start, & player coin keys, instead of hacking a keyboard also.  

However, hacking the gamepads is harder than just buying and using an encoder.  And like Jakobud said, the price of one ipac isn't much more than two USB gamepads.  [shrug]  If you're pretty good at hacking electronics (or have a good control of your temper), go ahead and hack the gamepads.  (use mame or mame32, not dmame, if you hack USB gamepads.)

[slug54]

That is similar to what I did for my first project
a desktop controller. I built Stephan Hans keyboard splitter circuit hacked a couple of game pads and a  keyboard . I used the keyboard for esc, coins, tab , etc
not for player controls and it works great  3 years of abuse and have had no troubles with it. When I built my cab I went with the I-pac of all the money I dropped on my cab the Ipac was the best investment. I would have to reccomend the Hack only for smaller desktop style controllers. With a Cab there is so much more you can do with it when you re-map your controls using an encoder. The hack was a lot of work but also a lot of fun . after about my 3rd trip to radio $hack I can't say that the hack was any cheaper.
                             
                                 Slug54

[jee dog]

im getting a little confused now. What exactly do we mean by "hack"?
this is what I think it means: open up two gamepads and solder wires from the pads to the switches on the buttons and joysticks. For me, this is simple b/c Ive already done it for another project before.
then use a keyboard (or perhaps extra gamepad buttons) for certain keys (like esc...etc) so I can have seperate buttons for mame functions.
Am i right? Or Am I thinking too simplistic?

i wont tamper with the usb ends that go into the computer...and I will possibly use a pass through for an extra keyboard.

Now if I use an ipac device....just exactly wont I have to "not hack"? Do you mean gampads? Does the ipac disables ghosting and allows me to map to keyboard keys and also use the keyboard as a pass through when I need to? Is this done  logically (software) or hardware? I was assuming that even with an ipac I still have to wire up seperate kb buttons for whatever buttons I want to use. Forgive me if Im wrong...im a little bit ignorant and a newbie.
thanks.

[me]

man...you are still TOO green...

just go with I-PAC...

NO GHOSTING AND YOU WILL HAVE 24 INPUTS...more then enough...

its the easiest way....and it already has pass through to your keyboard...only cost like $40...

go go go

[u_rebelscum]

im getting a little confused now. What exactly do we mean by "hack"?
this is what I think it means: open up two gamepads and solder wires from the pads to the switches on the buttons and joysticks. For me, this is simple b/c Ive already done it for another project before.
then use a keyboard (or perhaps extra gamepad buttons) for certain keys (like esc...etc) so I can have seperate buttons for mame functions.
Am i right? Or Am I thinking too simplistic?

Think of what you discribe as two different hacks: one opening & soldering to the gamepads, the other opening & soldering to a keyboard.  I think slug54 is talking mostly about (you should not do) the keyboard hack, Jakobud is talking about both hacks in general, and I (u_rebelscum) am talking about go ahead and hack the gamepads and keyboard.

i wont tamper with the usb ends that go into the computer...and I will possibly use a pass through for an extra keyboard.

Yes, don't mess with the usb ends. Yes a Y splitter or pass through could be used for the keyboard.  (The ipac has a pass through built in.)

Now if I use an ipac device....just exactly wont I have to "not hack"? Do you mean gampads? Does the ipac disables ghosting and allows me to map to keyboard keys and also use the keyboard as a pass through when I need to? Is this done  logically (software) or hardware? I was assuming that even with an ipac I still have to wire up seperate kb buttons for whatever buttons I want to use. Forgive me if Im wrong...im a little bit ignorant and a newbie.
thanks.

With the ipac, you won't have to take apart or solder ("hack") anything.    You would wire the arcade joystick, game buttons, and funtion buttons to the ipac, but the ipac has easy screw-in wiring, and the switches can quick snap connetion wiring (thus no soldering).
ipac is a keyboard encoder designed so it does not have ghosting, and is placed between the normal keyboard and the computer.  All the logic is programmed into the ipac chip; I would call it "hardware".

The ipac is setup so a slot has a label and a default key assignment that matches up with mame's default, but you can reprogram the ipac so the button/switch hooked into that slot will generate a different key press.  And just because a slot is labeled something (example: the slot labeled "1 bt8", player1 button8) does not mean you can't use it for something else. (example: slot labeled "1 bt8" can be used to pause the game instead by either changing mame's settings or reprograming the ipac settings.)

Note that if you get the ipac, you shouldn't have to hack either gamepad or keyboard.  On the other hand, if you hack gamepads instead of getting a ipac, you might have enough extra gamepad buttons you could set mame to read as the function buttons, and thus not need to hack a keyboard.  (depends on the gamepads you get, as some have 10 to 14 buttons).

Oh ya, and my one "minus" of the ipac: the "shift" button's default settings.  The ipac has a "shift" button that if you press that button and another button, instead of the encoder sending two separate button presses, it will send the "shift" key assigned to that button combination.  Okay that's a great idea so you don't have to wire as many buttons, but the problem is that the default is so that pressing player 1 start (the "shift" button) and player two start at the same time sends the "esc" key and you exit the game!  BAD combo IMO.  Anyway, I reassigned the shift key on my ipac, so it's not a big minus.  Official info on ipac  I think this picture from those pages diagrams pretty well how to wire it up, if you can tell the difference between the red wire and black wire.

And I just thought of a problem you may or may not run into if you hack two of the same usb gamepads.  Some other people have run into problems with windows switching which one controls player one and which one controls player two on reboot.  (I don't have that problem with two identical USB mice.)

(Long enough?  Sorry about that.)

[SirPoonga]

here is what I have:
a full size cabinet with all working parts.

here is what i want to do:
gut it, including the monitor, and replace it with a mame setup with a pc monitor (so no fuzziness when i use it as a pc & I want standard pc games to look good too) and working keyboard so it can serve as a mame machine and pc. I only want a controller board with just regular mame function buttons (esc...etc) and two joysticks, and 7 buttons each (for SF2/SNK style layout), and two extra buttons for player 1 & 2.

here is an idea from a friend of mine for controller setup:
Use two usb gravis gamepads and hack them for two players. Wire them for buttons & joysticks.

hack one keyboard for mame functions & wire them to seperate buttons, and use another keyboard in a slide out tray for typing. I heard that I can use a sort of pass through device to do this.

This simplistic approach allows me to avoid using special encoders like the i-pac. All I want to know is: Is this method going to work? I think I would only get ghosting on the mame function buttons but that wouldnt matter anyway. Has anyone here done something similar?

btw:I dont care about older games like pacman that use 4 way joysticks. both of mine must be 8 way.

PS:No track ball either

I didn't read all the replies yet, so if I am repeating someone oh well.

Yes, this is a feasable hack.

[jee dog]

wow..
thanks guys for clearing everything up. I already bought an additional gamepad (I already had one), but now Im going to return it and get a ipac instead. I rather go with simplicity..

ps: when i said I wired up pads before...it was for some controllers me and afriend made for a ps1. We broke a pad up and started soldering connections to real arcade controls....thats why It was so simple...
anyway, thanks again guys...and Ill keep everyone posted as to how well the job turns out.
thanks.

[BASSOFeeSH]

I-Pac == godsend